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 Br. Superiors Letter to the Senior Brothers
Rome, July 6, 2003
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"Still bearing fruit in old age."(Ps. 92,15)
Brothers, you among us who are in or who are approaching retirement, each of you has "a role to play in the vitality of the Institute" (R. 145). Your identity and value as Brothers are not at all diminished because of advanced years and declining energy. You are a living example of the reminder in our Rule that "the first apostolate of the Brothers consists in the witness of their consecrated life" (R. 24). Many of you can take and have taken on new commitments beneficial for others and fulfilling for you. We count on you to transmit our spiritual and educational patrimony to new generations of Lasallians. We count on you to show young people that to live as a Brother can be a fulfilling and happy life. This can be a powerful call to young men to join us. The large number of elder Brothers in our Institute is indeed a grace, for which we all thank God, and a witness to the Church and the world to the possibility and value of faithful service in the religious life (Message of the 42nd General Chapter to the Brothers).
Dear Brothers,
Last year I wrote a letter to the young Brothers to encourage them in their vocation and to ask them to assist us in the renovation of the Institute. I have since then thought of writing a letter likewise to the senior Brothers, because I think, as I said in an interview in the Spanish review Vida Religiosa, that the two deposits of riches of a congregation are the young who encourage and spur us onwards, and the senior religious who offer us the witness of their fidelity. However it is not so easy today to specify this stage of life which is growing longer and beginning later. I am thinking of Brothers older than 70 while being aware that much of what I am sharing here can be applied to other ages. May the God of life be with you!
 I am writing these lines on the day of the funeral of Brother Leone Morelli, and I am thinking that the witness of his long life of 91 years can be an encouragement to all. As I expressed it in the communication made to the Institute, for those who had the grace to know Brother Leone his memory is imperishable. Right up to the last days of his long life his person reflected amongst many other qualities a profound spirituality, an exquisite courtesy, a fraternal interest for each individual, a remarkable delicacy, a great serenity and an unvarying love for our Institute. Brother Leone is for me a representative of those very many Brothers who throughout the length and breadth of the Lasallian world show us by their lives that living our Lasallian vocation right to the end is a worthwhile endeavour.
Two situations can exist for you Brothers who are living this stage. One is of those who continue carrying on the Lasallian mission in a way adapted to their physical capabilities, the other is of those who because of health problems or age see themselves restricted as to what they can do. Nevertheless all are called to continue with the mission which gave meaning to their lives in commitment to youth by means of Christian education. For the first ones the last Chapter suggests giving preference to an educational service of the poor. In fact Proposition 21 asks the centre of the Institute: to draw up a list of places where apostolic work is being done, and where retired Brothers can contribute to the educational service of the poor for a specified time. The second group offer to the Lord their sufferings and prayers as mediators for the Lasallian mission of making the means of salvation available to youth. Both contributions are precious and necessary.
 Morris West said in "The Shoes of the Fisherman": "It costs so much to come to being fully human that there are very few who have the clear-sightedness and courage to pay the price". No doubt we all know Brothers who at their closing of their lives present us with the evidence that this is possible. They encourage us by their example to follow in their footsteps, living with authenticity each stage of our lives so as to one day bring to reality what in them is already a foretaste of what they are awaiting. However this is not something done on the spot. It is prepared for throughout life, especially from mid-life onwards.
In my visits to the various Regions of the Institute I have shared how one of the experiences that has most touched me has been the interaction that I have had with senior Brothers in their retirement houses. I have no hesitation in saying that on these occasions I have touched God with my hands. This is because I have perceived through their witness the love of God freely offered, the value of fidelity, their sharing in the paschal mystery and a more contemplative dimension in prayer.
 In The Book of Proverbs is to be found a text which defines the meaning of life. "The path of the virtuous is like the light of dawn, its brightness growing to the fullness of day" (Prov. 4,19). This presents an optimistic view of life. In proportion as we advance in age we should be growing in the light and the clarity of God who gives meaning to the objectives which give direction to our lives. In the same sense the Rule tells us that by faith the Brother recognises that his life consists in a succession of calls from God to which he continues to respond (Cf. R. 100).
Human life is an adventure in that each stage has its challenges, its mystery, its beauty. Throughout the whole of the process which makes up our life the basic thing is to work away at our following of Jesus, at making our own the Gospel values and promoting the coming of the Reign of God. However it is important to be aware that each stage has its own highlights and shadows, its plusses and minuses. With respect to the age which you are now living, the Guide for Formation invites you and us to discover and celebrate the beauty of this stage which anticipates the "uselessness" of eternal life with Christ in God (p. 208).
 This is so because while the first stage of life is more centred on ourselves and on the need for our personal development, the second which you are completing has for aim to reach the "centre of our being", that point at which man really stands with himself and encounters God. According to Tauler, a German Dominican mystic of the 14th century, from mid-life onwards it is important for us to empty ourselves and strip ourselves for God so as to be clothed by Him anew with his grace.
Brothers, today more than ever we must be witnesses to God, and you more than anyone else can offer us this valuable service. The stage of life that you are living is a time of grace in that you can, with the help of God and fraternal accompaniment, effect the most radical and important change in human life. As our last General Chapter so well put it: At all stages of our existence we experience a tension between two movements of our being: a focus upon our own selves and the spiritual urge to go out to others. These two movements can have both positive and negative effects.
At the end of life, when the diminution of energy no longer permits us to engage in our former activity, the turning in on oneself is felt more intensely. It is the time when each person must confront his past, when concern for his body takes on special importance, when the question of the meaning of his existence arises with singular urgency.
This stage of life can be a trial. It can also be a gift, where the action of God in one's life is recognized, causing one to render thanks and offer oneself entirely to Him in love and trust. (Circular 447, pp. 44-45).
 The serenity which many of you exhibit is the fruit of the capacity that you have exercised in abandoning your own will to the will of God and of renouncing your desire for dominating so as to abandon yourselves completely to God, to simply be before God, to live in his presence.
If during younger days it was normal to plan your life and activity, in mature age there is required the offering up of the heart, the abandonment into the hands of God. The Founder lived in this way as his final words testify: "I adore in all things the will of God in my regard". This was also what Jesus said to Peter: "When you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go. In these words Jesus indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give glory to God" (Jn. 21, 18-20).
Human life can be compared to the sun's trajectory. In the morning the sun rises and gives light to the world. At noon it reaches its zenith and its rays begin to wane and decline. Evening is as important as morning. Nevertheless its laws are different. For man this means becoming aware of life's curve. From mid-life on there has to be adjustment to what is occurring within rather than to what is happening externally. At this phase we have to come down to the essentials, to the pathway to the interior, retreating to the interior rather than moving outwards. "What youth confronts and must confront externally, the man in the evening of his life must confront internally" (Cf. Anselmo Grün, Mid-life as Spiritual Task). For this reason at this time of life it is essential to get our life into perspective, to accept our darker realities, to abandon ourselves into the hands of God.
 At this stage of our life we need to become aware certainly of the downward biological curve of our life in order to refocus psychologically and spiritually towards a more disinterested commitment to God. The experience of Paul thus becomes a reality: "We are only the earthenware jars that hold this treasure. we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus, too, may always be seen in our body" (2 Cor. 4, 7, 10) or Preface I of the Dead: The sadness of death gives way to the bright promise of immortality. Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven".
At the approach of that evening in which we will be judged on love we need to look ahead as St Paul recommends: "All that I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus" (Ph. 3, 13-15). Let us not be amongst those who continue to look back.
Moreover let us not forget that, no matter what age we are, the Father is going to urge us on to give of ourselves and to commit our life for the salvation of the world in an unceasingly renewed mission in accordance with our strength and our capabilities. Such is the thinking of the 43rd General Chapter: In recognition of the witness which the older Brothers give to those around them of the spiritual richness of their religious life, the Brothers of the General Chapter encourage them to pursue their mission in an apostolate appropriate to their situation, by their presence, and by their prayer.
Brothers, at the conclusion of this letter I would like to share a text found in a book which I read recently, by the Spanish Jesuit José María Castillo. I think that what he says about religious life in its origins still holds good today. Reading the writings which the first witnesses of religious life have left us reveals this surprising fact: the major figures of the monastic origins were the elderly. This was because they were the formators, the models whom the others, especially the young, had to observe and study so as to assimilate the spirit and the lifestyle that the new candidate was seeking to learn (El Futuro de la Vida Religiosa, p. 162).
 Brothers let us help one another to seek always the absolute of God in our lives. Let us help one another to follow Jesus more radically. Let us help one another to commit ourselves with an ardent zeal to the service of poor young people and from these of all youth. Let us help one another to live a community life in which we give priority to the quality of our relationships. Let us help one another to encourage other young men to follow our footsteps by seeing in you a fully realised vocation. Let us help one another to share our mission with lay people and not to fear an association which is opening for us new paths to the future.
Brothers we need your advice, your prayers, your patience, your wisdom, your support and understanding. Thank you Brothers for the witness of your fidelity.
May Mary our Mother, ever attentive to the Will of the Father, assist you each day in reproducing the image of the Son through the power of the Spirit.
Fraternally in de La Salle,
Brother Álvaro Rodríguez Echeverría
Superior General |
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